White-Tie

Did you notice the push to make the president a buffoon on the occasion of the Queen's visit? "Gasp! He misspoke a date! Oh no, the Queen will think we're rubes."
And I heard on the radio that the president will have to learn to do a white-tie dinner, this being his first one and all. "He'll even have to learn which silverware to use with which food," Sure he will:


That's the prez in 2003, white-tying with the Queen. According to the Mail & Guardian: "The dinner is the first -- and maybe the only -- white-tie event of the Bush administration. Even Clinton had only three." Even Clinton? Even? Wasn't Bill Clinton the president who had a thing for Big Macs? Course, in Bill Clinton, a taste for simple food showed that he was one of us. In George Bush, a taste for simple food shows that he's a yokel.

Anyway, about learning the silverware: you think the president is tasked with setting the table? Unless it's changed, the silverware will laid out in order. And when the Newtons are brought out, the Fig Newton fork will be the one on the outside.... pretty simple. Anyway, the lumberjack perspective on silverware is that anything beyond the basic three pieces (spoon, big spoon, and really big spoon) is pretense. Here's a quiz... spot the salad forks:

Haha, trick quiz: the salad forks are all in his back.